A state senator named Kyrsten Sinema has won the Democratic primary in Arizona's 9th Congressional District and is said to have a reasonable chance of winning in November. Surprisingly, she is a nonbeliever, openly bisexual, and is even quite attractive!

She helped launch the Secular Coalition of Arizona and has been honored by the Center for Inquiry for "supporting public policy based on scientific thinking, evidence, and reason while maintaining church-state separation and promoting civil rights." She's known for fighting Arizona's harsh immigration policies and anti-gay legislation.

If elected, she would be only the second open atheist (and first open bisexual) to serve in Congress, so this sounds like a race to watch...

This is good news, in more ways than one. Even if she does lose in the general election, that fact that she won the primary is still highly significant. I'm very glad to see this development -- thanks for the post.

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

Humbug. I was getting ready to make a donation to her campaign, but there's something on there about not being able to accept donations from federal government contractors. I wonder what the deal is with that... I've dropped them a note to ask.

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

Arizona has been solid Republican since 1968. If McCain runs, he will be looking at a 2:1 majority over all his rivals' votes.

Ms Sinema sounds a capable politician, however, in the face of such a certain defeat, the Democrats can put up anyone, regardless of their personal beliefs.

I have seen this sort of thing on both sides in the UK - Party A always wins constituency A*, so Party B puts up a surprising choice, a [wiki]Stalking horse[/wiki], just to see what sort of levels of support are available, and thus guide their future choice of candidate in other elections.

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

Arizona has been solid Republican since 1968. If McCain runs, he will be looking at a 2:1 majority over all his rivals' votes.

She's not going up against McCain. The Republican candidate is some other guy I've never heard of.

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Ms Sinema sounds a capable politician, however, in the face of such a certain defeat, the Democrats can put up anyone, regardless of their personal beliefs.

I have seen this sort of thing on both sides in the UK - Party A always wins constituency A*, so Party B puts up a surprising choice, a [wiki]Stalking horse[/wiki], just to see what sort of levels of support are available, and thus guide their future choice of candidate in other elections.

Actually, that District is considered to be a toss up. The pundits are saying it's likely to be a close race.

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

Wow. That is really cool. An atheist AND opening bisexual? Honestly, I think that openly bisexual people face more discrimination than openly gay people because of perceived promiscuity. And we all know how feared atheists are, given our innate hedonism and lack of morality.

I took a peek at her website http://kyrstensinema.com/endorsements/ and she has a strong endorsement list. Her "issues section" is weaker than I would like to see. She seems to be taking a vague, middle of the road stance on most issues.

They're implying that she's some sort of pagan or witch, although it seems to be guilt-by-association based on activities that occurred at anti-war rallies she attended many years ago...i.e. "dance circles" and the like...

I think that my weak understanding of the arcane voting system you have, let me down.

It's not that complicated. Our legislature is bicameral, the Senate and the House. Each state has two members in the Senate. Senators represent the entire state and are thus voted on by the entire state.

Membership in the House is determined by a state's population, so for example, Vermont, with its fairly small population, has only one member in the House, while California has over 50. In states where there is more than one House member, the state is divided up into districts, one district for each member of the House. People vote only for candidates in the District that they live in. Every ten years, our federal government conducts a census, and depending on the results of that census, changes may be made in a state's House membership and the mapping of the districts in that state. Arizona's Ninth District is a new district, created as a result of the 2010 census, and there is therefore no incumbent.

So although Arizona overall is a pretty Republican state, the distribution of Republicans and Democrats throughout the state is not uniform, and as it happens (as you discovered) Republicans do not dominate the Ninth District.

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

So as Pianodward said, in the Senate, each state gets two representatives, regardless of the size or population of the state. In the House, the number of representatives is based on the population, and the most recent census numbers are used to determine how many representatives the state gets. States with more representatives have more power in the house.

But more importantly, (perhaps) is the fact that the number of congressional districts is equal to the number of electoral votes the state has in the presidential elections. As I'm sure you know, in the US, we don't elect presidents by popular vote. Instead, each state has a certain number of electoral votes, or points. If the majority of voters in that state select one candidate, then ALL of the electoral votes for that state go to that candidate. Sometimes a candidate (like George W) loses the popular vote, but gets a majority of electoral votes, and becomes president. That is why there was the big scandal about the state of Florida in 2000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida,_2000 The popular vote within the state was very very close, but when the decision was made that the majority of the votes counted went to George W, he got ALL of the state's electoral votes, and subsequently won the election.

So the census counts how many people live in each city, suburb and rural community in the country. Everyone who lives there counts, regardless of whether that person is a foreign student or an undocumented worker.

Arizona is an interesting case. The state has (or had in 2010)[1] one of the highest percentages of undocumented residents in the entire country.

And it is the presence of those undocumented immigrants, who were counted in the US census, that pushed the population numbers up and enabled Arizona to not only create a new congressional district and increase the state's power in congress, but also to increase the state's number of electoral votes.

Anti-immigrant practices in AZ (which were later found to be unconstitutional) made life so miserable for many latinos, especially undocumented immigrants, that there was a mass exodus from the state starting in late 2007.

I had not thought about how the House grows larger with the population--and is arguably far more democratic, small d, than the Senate. And the connection with electoral votes. Makes the participating in the census very important, along with registering all eligible citizens.

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When all of Cinderella's finery changed back at midnight, why didn't the shoes disappear? What's up with that?

I had not thought about how the House grows larger with the population

It doesn't. The size of the House is fixed at 435 members.

The number or representatives can go up or down, based on population, and the number of votes in the electoral college can go up or down, based on population. New York has lost both representatives in congress, and electoral votes in recent years.

The number of representatives and the number of electoral votes are not exactly the same numbers for each state, but they are usually pretty close.

But yeah. Participation in the census is VERY important. If there is an undercount, your state loses not only congressional representation and electoral votes, but also loses federal money for public schools, and a wide range of other federally funded programs. If your neighborhood has an undercount, you lose a portion of the local funding that goes to the department of sanitation.

The number or representatives can go up or down, based on population, and the number of votes in the electoral college can go up or down, based on population.

That used to be the case, but since the Reapportionment Act of 1929 was passed, it isn't anymore. Since then, the size of the House has been fixed at 435 members (and thus the number of votes in the Electoral College is also fixed). The way it works is, if one state gains a House seat, as Arizona did this year, another state has to lose one.

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

Then it would have two senators and, in all likelihood, five representatives in the House, based on its population. Those five seats would have to come at the cost of taking five seats from one or more other states.

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

I wonder if she would have won if she were less attractive... I'm just sayin'

She won by a pretty large margin, so I doubt it was a deciding factor. However, I don't doubt that some people (we'll never know how many, of course) voted for her based on her appearance. Conversely, though, I also don't doubt that some people (again, we'll never know how many) voted against her because she is not heterosexual.

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn